EDU AFTERMATH

TAKING ON SOME OF THE CONVERSATIONS POST-EDU NEWS

Dearest friends, it is election day in America, and I am going to do what is right as a non-citizen: I’ll be contributing to some serious election fraud.

Just JOKING, FBI snoopers.

But seriously, if you’re in America, get off your ass, stop doom-scrolling, and get your vote in.

The news was pretty spicy all day around Edu. There are a few things I wanted to clear up after listening to The AOP and reading around.

Don’t Search for Issues

Edu is 46 years old. He’s been at Arsenal since 2019. He’s overseen a lot of success (you can rant on about trophies, but football people look deeper than silverware—ask Ten Hag). Edu clearly wanted a next level he knew wasn’t available at a club like Arsenal… and he moved to Nottingham Forest.

This sort of thing happens in big businesses all the time, especially in elite corporate entities. Not everyone can be C-suite at Facebook. But if you’re at Facebook, doing a good job in a big business unit, you can get a BIG job at a smaller company.

Edu was on £2m a year at Arsenal. He’s getting £6m at Forest. His job at Arsenal was more stable, but he can make £18m in 3 years at Forest. It’d take him 9 years to cash that at Arsenal.

Who in their right mind is staying at Arsenal with that sort of offer of cash and power? No one. I doubt he even asked Arsenal to match the offer because it’s a mad one.

No Path to CEO

Edu is nowhere near the level needed to be a CEO at Arsenal—but at Forest, why not? He’s a really good scout, he gets culture, he’s well connected, and he’s a very attractive name to certain players.

That said, not many football clubs have CEOs who were exfootballers for the same reasons there aren’t many business CEOs who run the Sporting part of a club. Football CEOs generally come from Finance, Legal, Brand, or Revenue and they control the football side via a Sporting Director. Maybe he’s the Football CEO, or he’s just a ceremonial CEO… because Marinakis runs the show.

It's a bit of a longwinded to say that the position Edu desired will never exist at Arsenal because it’s not generally an effective way to operate (noting Brian Marwood, Michael Zorc, and the crew at Bayern as rare exceptions).

Canary in the Coal Mine

Come on, people, you really think Edu sees a problem in a squad he helped build, and he’s so worried he moved out of London to go to Forest?

Don’t look for issues—he got the offer of a lifetime, and he’s taken it.

If anything, he should be proud to leave at this time. It’s a bold move, a brave one, one that is not that sexy, but it’s what he wants. Good for him. He leaves Arsenal in a better place than he found it, and he conducted himself with a lot of integrity. He was part of a crew of people who understood the magnitude of the job, the weight of the badge, and believed there was a way to fight clubs with bigger guns if the right plans were put in place.

The Optics

There’s a view that we’ve had our Distraction FC moment. We’ve gone from having no problems, with total control of the narrative, to feeling slightly adrift. Edu leaving looks like an unforced error we could have controlled.

Again, I have to disagree here. Is this bad optics? Sure. Losing talented people can always be framed that way. But I think the reality of this move is very different. Day-to-day operations won’t change. The brains of the department he runs are still very much in place. People inside the club have known something was coming, so it’s not a total surprise. People taking on new opportunities is just part of the beautiful game.

Could we have countered? Sure. But Arsenal can’t pay Football CEO money to a Sporting Director. The optics for me are good. Edu did a great job at Arsenal and took a bigger job at a smaller club elsewhere. A new hire or an internal promotion can bring fresh ideas, new perspectives, and… without meaning to be rude, maybe someone with a different skill set.

Not many elite clubs have club legends in those roles. They have people trained in data, coding, advanced analytics, with skills that had to be outstanding so they could outshine the lure of hiring a big name who had won trophies. You don’t know who the Sporting Directors are for Brighton (after Chelsea drained their talent pool), Bayer Leverkusen, Atalanta, Girona, Bologna, Napoli, Stade Rennais… why? Because they’re mostly not big fancy names.

I haven’t really thought about what Arsenal might look for in a new Sporting Director. They could look internally. They could look outside. They might not hire anyone. But, the key thing we need to understand as fans is this: no one is indispensable. Arsenal is f*cking massive. We’ll find someone who can bring something different that moves us forward.

So, don’t worry about it.

Have a wonderful day! Match preview for Inter Milan tomorrow. x

EDU OUT - REACTION PODCAST